Barbara McClintock and Cytogenetics

On June 16, 1902, AmericancytogeneticistBarbara McClintock was born. She is one of the world’s most distinguished cytogeneticists and received the 1983Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine.

Maybe, first of all you might ask, what is cytogenetics. Well, cytogenetics is a branch of genetics that is concerned with the study of the structure and function of the cell, especially the chromosomes. Chromosomes, as being a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences, were first observed in plant cells by Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli in 1842. Their behavior in animal (salamander) cells was described by Walther Flemming, the discoverer of mitosis, in 1882. The name was coined by another Germananatomist, von Waldeyer in 1888.

Barbara McClintock was born Eleanor McClintock in Hartford, Connecticut, the third of four children born to physician Thomas Henry McClintock and Sara Handy McClintock. As a young girl, her parents determined that Eleanor, a “feminine” and “delicate” name, was not appropriate for her, and chose Barbara instead. Barbara was an independent child beginning at a very young age. She was described as a solitary and independent child, and a tomboy. The McClintock family moved to Brooklyn in 1908 and McClintock completed her secondary education there at Erasmus Hall High School, where she graduated early 1919. She wanted to continue her studies at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture, but her mother resisted sending McClintock to college, for fear that she would be unmarriageable. Luckily, her father intervened just before registration began, and she matriculated at Cornell in 1919.

Barbara McClintock’s interest in genetics began when she took her first course in that field at Cornell University in 1921. When McClintock began her career, scientists were just becoming aware of the relationship between heredity and events they could actually examine in cells under the microscope. She served as a graduate assistant in the Department of Botany for three years from 1924–27 and in 1927, following completion of her graduate studies, was employed as an Instructor, a post she held until 1931. McClintock’s cytogenetic research focused on developing ways to visualize and characterize maize chromosomes. In 1931, McClintock and Harriet Creighton demonstrated that cytological recombination of marked chromosomes correlated with recombination of genetic traits (genes).

Barbara McClintock had a hard time finding work. Even after she was hired at the University of Missouri, she quit after a short time because the biology chairperson told her that as a woman she would never be hired as a full professor. Finally in 1942, Carnegie Institute offered her a research position in their Department of Genetics. The Institute gave McClintock a cornfield, laboratory, and the ability to focus solely on research, where she spent the next 43 years studying genetic mutations by examining changes in plants and pigments in kernels of maize. While studying maize, McClintock noticed changing patterns of coloration in the kernels between generations, leading her to infer that the reason genetic material changes between generations is that genes move around on the chromosomes. Gregor Mendel’s principles of heredity were still fairly new at the time and acceptance of his principles was not widespread yet.[5] McClintock’s discovery was generally ignored by the male scientific world. She continued her career in cytogenetics studying the mechanics and inheritance of broken and ring (circular) chromosomes of maize. During her cytogenetic work, McClintock discovered transposons, that is the ability of genes to change position on the chromosome, a find which eventually led to her Nobel Prize in 1983.

McClintock was recognized throughout her career as one of the most distinguished scientists of the 20th century. In 1944, she became the third woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She was the first woman to become president of the Genetics Society of America, to which she was elected in 1945. In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon awarded McClintock the National Medal of Science. At the age of 81, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her “discovery of mobile genetic elements.” She was the first woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in that category.

At yovisto academic video search, you may be interested in the video lecture Mendel, Hardy, Weinberg by Mike Moser at Berkeley.